How PMCrsquos errors turned busy chowk into dump

  • | Wednesday | 19th September, 2018

While the feeder vans are supposed to come before 11 am, they mostly turn up only by 3pm-4pm. The rest is taken to the Aundh depot by the PMC feeder vans. The sanitation staff collect and segregate the waste here, which is eventually picked up by feeder vans. We have also asked the civic body’s feeder vans to make sure that they reach the spot before 11am and clean it up every day.” Their efforts bore fruit as about a week ago, the chowk was cleaned up by the sanitation staff.

PUNE: Wakeshwar Chowk , on the proposed 120ft road that connects Baner to Sus Road , has become a site for one of the city’s newest landfills.A few months ago, residents in the neighbourhood had started an online campaign urging the Pune Municipal Corporation to clean up the place. The PMC ended up sending staff to remove the waste, but to everyone’s shock, the garbage has returned to the site.“There is an open plot on the 120-ft road. The sanitation staff collect and segregate the waste here, which is eventually picked up by feeder vans. While the feeder vans are supposed to come before 11 am, they mostly turn up only by 3pm-4pm. Even then, not all the day’s garbage is cleared from the spot — a lot of it gets left behind,” said Seema Agrawal, a local resident.The leftover garbage attracts stray cows and has turned the plot into a breeding ground of disease-causing insects, residents said.“Whatever can be sold is kept aside. Sometimes, the garbage is not cleared on time, and when people see the garbage lying here, they tend to dump more waste,” said another resident.A rise in the number of hotels in the area has made matters worse, the residents alleged.“Over the past year or so, the number of eateries on the Sus Road has increased. Those dumping food waste at night are encouraging stray dogs that seem to have found the perfect feeding spot,” said Raji Nair , a resident of the Pashan area.Earlier, the residents had started an online campaign by sending at least one complaint — about the general lack of cleanliness in the chowk — every day to the PMC’s helpline app. Their efforts bore fruit as about a week ago, the chowk was cleaned up by the sanitation staff. However, this week, things are back to square one as the chowk is once again lined with garbage.Ruchita Jaju, a resident who has been fighting a sustained battle for almost four months now, has sent several complaints to the PMC’s Swachchata app. “First, garden waste was being thrown at the spot. That started attracting other garbage. Soon, this place became an unofficial dump,” Jaju said.Agrawal added: “Civic sense, or the lack of it, is only 5% of the problem. How can the PMC turn a corner of a well-constructed road into a garbage segregation spot? SWaCH collects garbage from the Sutarwadi area and brings it here to segregate. Then a raddiwalah is called to sell whatever can be sold. The rest is taken to the Aundh depot by the PMC feeder vans. In my opinion, if the PMC and the SWaCH staff can’t handle operations, the disposing of waste should be outsourced to private firms.”Sandip Kadam, the Aundh ward officer, said: “We have asked our staff, both PMC and SWaCH staff, to not segregate the garbage on the road. We have also asked the civic body’s feeder vans to make sure that they reach the spot before 11am and clean it up every day.”

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